After a long journey to Puno, we went out as a group to experience some local Peruvian dancing and try our first Guinea Pig. Surprisingly, it was more like duck than the expected chicken, and prepared beautifully. Along with about 10 local dances and a band to entertain, a pretty good evening all round.
In the morning we travelled via a fleet of ´tuc-tuc´s to our boat and set off on our Lake Titicaca adventure. After a quick stop for lunch on Taquile Island, and amazing views, we headed off to our homestay for the night, on the mainland. We were all staying with families in a small Peruvian village - including dinner and breakfast with them. Afer the boys had finished playing football with a ´rival´ GAP group and the locals, we were taken to our homestays. Our family seemed only to consist of a dad and his two young daughters. We couldn´t establish what had happened to mum as our Spanish was rather limited. We managed to work out how to offer to help with dinner and were given some very awkward potatoes to peel with knives which took us ages! They must have thought we were useless and the 7 year old was clearly more skilled with a knife than we were! We had a wholesome dinner of carbs and tea in which we exhausted our full Spanish vocabulary and spent quite some time in silence. Then it was announced that there was a surprise and we were whosked off to our room.... to be dressed in the local attire! I was dressed by the 7 year old and her dad in 4 skirts and lots of other layers. Rob was allowed to dress himself. Then we returned to the village hall where the rest of our group were waiting, dressed the same. Apparently we were there at the time of a huge carnival in the village and we had been inivited to join the locals for a practice fiesta, learning their custom and dances. Thankfully they first demonstrated how it was done, but before we knew it, we were all up on the dancefloor making fools of ourselves. We danced with our families too and quite embarrassingly, on our many layers and at such altitude, we were struggling for breath after just 2 dances. Really good fun though.
The next day we awoke with backaches (dancing with 3 year olds for a long time had something to do with it we think) but were rewarded with fried breads and more tea. After a bit more stilted Spanish, in which we hopefully dodn´t offend anyone too much, we all regrouped and boarded our boat. More amazing views of the huge lake and mountains, and then we reached the Uros Islands. They are made entirely of reeds and float on the lake. Although the last of the tradiational Uros people died in the 60s, they are still inhabited, although numbers are dwindling. Tourism pretty much keeps them afloat (sorry) so we took advantage of paying for a ride in one of the large reed boats that are a few years in the making.
After that we headed back to Puno to find they too were celebrating carnival. For us this meant spending the rest of the day avoiding locals with cans of foam that were willing to spray anything that moved. We were even victims of a drive-by foaming, and got attacked on our way to the restaurant in the evening! We essentially ran home.
We had a great time all in all and felt pretty privileged that we were able to part of the Peruvian celebrations and share what little the locals on the lake had.
Farewell Peru..... hello Bolivia!